Board / Staff
STAFF
Dori Vinella, Executive Director
A Taoseña for over 40 years, Dori is a businesswoman, muse, and yoga practitioner. In 1973 she created Dori's Bakery & Cafe/Espresso Bar, which she owned and operated until 1997. "Dori's" attracted visual and performing artists daily, and many writers like John Nichols and Julia Cameron have acknowledged its importance in their creative lives. Beginning as the Curator for the 1998 Summer Writers Series, she is now the engine for this successful organization.
Lyn Bleiler, Assistant Director
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Lyn Bleiler is a writer whose poetry has been included in a number of literary journals and anthologies, and articles have appeared in Somerset Studio, Santa Fe Trend, and New Mexico magazines. She is author of an historic volume on Taos for Arcadia Publishing's Images of America Series, and was 2009 and 2011/12 writer-in-residence at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy, and a 2012 Hemingway Fellow in Berlin, Germany. Lyn co-curates SOMOS' annual Taos Storytelling Festival.
BOARD of DIRECTORS
Alan Macrae, president
Author of Mud, Space and Spirit, the pioneering book of New Mexico 60’s architecture, a native New Mexican and local builder, he is also a published poet and novelist.
Janet Webb, vice president.jpg)
Janet has lived in Taos since 1973. She is owner and president of Webb Design Inc, a design and marketing company focused on tourism, museums, and the fine arts arena. Her other community involvement includes Harwood Museum of Art, TCA, and Taos Feeds Taos.
Cherie Burns, at-large
Author of Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers and The Great Hurricane: 1938 and Stepmotherhood: How to Survive Without Feeling Frustrated, Left Out, or Wicked. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Working Women, People, New York and other publications.
Kathy Fitzgerald, at-large
Magna cum laude in English from Harvard University. Interpreter for national Italian TV station in Rome, Italy; worked at Boston’s PBS TV station; co-founder of Ithaca Films, a film production entity; board member of Poet’s Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts; in California was active on boards such as Global Fund for Women and Roots of Peace. She is currently active on a board that supports community and sustainable agriculture in El Salvador, the FSSCA. She is a trustee for a small family foundation out of Boston, the Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation.
Robert J. Silver, Ph.D, treasurer
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Bob has been practicing clinical and forensic psychology for almost forty years. His career has included active and sustained private practice of clinical and forensic psychology, academic faculty appointments at major universities, and significant administrative positions. His Ph.D., 1972, is from Indiana University (Clinical Psychology). He currently limits his professional practice to forensic and clinical consulting assignments and is licensed and based in both New Mexico and in Texas.
Linda Michel-Cassidy, at-large
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Visual artist, teacher and writer, Linda works primarily from a studio in Arroyo Seco, showing in galleries and museums in NM as well as both coasts and England. She has taught topics ranging from Copyright Law to Advanced Metals Techniques to Public Art projects with kindergartners at Ranchos and Enos Elementary schools. She has also been a SOMOS youth mentor. Her writing has been similarly all over the place, but she is currently focused
on fiction.
J.D.: McGeorge Law School, MFA Visual Arts: California College of the Arts, and Bachelors degrees from University of Delaware (Psychology and Criminal Justice, Honors) and CCA (Metalsmithing, High Distinction).
Prudence Abeln, at-large 
Prudence has a BA in Political Science/Education from Colorado College, and an MBA from the University of Utah. Most of her career she was a Mortgage Loan Officer with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Prudy's current involvements in Taos are as President of the Taos Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns (TABBI); Elder at First Presbyterian Church; Asst. Governor, District 5520, Rotary International Assoc.; and on the Board of the Taos Art Museum.
